Almost a fortnight after being tested positive for novel coronavirus, 29 people, including four children, staying at the Mankhurd Mentally Deficient Children’s Home have successfully recovered and have been discharged on Thursday.
Most of the 29 were found to be asymptomatic, while others with comorbidities were identified as high-risk contacts of those tested positive.
The facility houses 268 persons, aged up to 70 years, with mental and physical disabilities. On July 26, 29 inmates of Mankhurd Children's home were tested positive.
The matter came to light after the management of organisation Children's Home Society which runs the home in Mankhurd informed BMC that some of their inmates had developed fever, cough, cold and other Covid like symptoms. A medical camp was then organised at the children's home. Based on the screening, over 80 were made to undergo the tests for coronavirus infection, 29 of whom tested positive.
Following this they were shifted to BKC jumbo Covid care facility.
"These 29 including four children have emerged victorious against deadly coronavirus. We felicitated them on Thursday with some chocolates and flowers. I appreciate the efforts put in by Dr Dhere, incharge of BKC Covid centre for the recovery of these children and others from the Mankhurd home," said Rahul Shewale, Member of Parliament from Mumbai South Constituency.
The Mankhurd campus where the Home is located has two other children care institutions for boys and girls. Officials said that many staffers, including teachers and caretakers, who work at the three Homes and other institutions in the city, stay in the quarters at Mankhurd.
There are nearly 300 staffers of the organisation and around 1,000 children lodged in various institutions across the city. The Children Aid Society Employees’ Union has also written to the state government, seeking medical cover for its staffers and for them to be treated as Covid warriors
Last month, a guard at another children’s care institution in Mankhurd, 42-year-old Jitendra Solanki succumbed to Covid-19. In May, two children and a staffer had also tested positive at a children’s home in Dongri. An official said that since more than 50 per cent of the staffers working in children’s institutions of the city travel daily to work, a request has been made to allow them permission to travel on the local trains.
